________________________________________________ / \ | _________________________________________ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | DOS & Don'ts | | | | | | | | A Modern Newsletter | | | | for Vintage-minded Folks | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | C:\>Issue #2 (December 2023)_ | | | |_________________________________________| | | | \_________________________________________________/ \___________________________________/ ___________________________________________ _-' .-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. --- `-_ _-'.-.-. .---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.--. .-.-.`-_ _-'.-.-.-. .---.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-`__`. .-.-.-.`-_ :---------------------------------------------------------------: `---._.---------------------------------------------------._.---' ------------------ In this Issue... ------------------ Features ---------- He-Man: A Man of My Generation, Joe Collett Alex Kidd: A Historical Footnote, Yousef Gaming & Robotics - Part One, BlueMSX Chanukah: A Time For Tradition, Grizzly Adam Columns --------- The Latent Image - with Jon Mullin Learn Basic HTML with Joe, Joe Collett Retro Living in a Modern World, Grizzly Adam Bits & Bytes -------------- Our Readers' Retro Memories ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____________________________________________________________________ | ________________________________________________________________ | | |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\| | | |\\\\\\\/|\\\\\\ __, _,____, __, _, ___, _, _, \\\\\ /) \\\\| | | |\\\\\\/||\\\\\\ |__| |_, __,( |\/| /_| |\ | \\ (_// \\\\\| | | |\\\\\/'||\\\\\\ _| |,_|__, _| _|,_/ |,_| \|, \\\ //`) \\\\| | | |\\\\| ||\\\\\\------------------------------------\\\//\\\\\\\\| | | |\\\\| ||\\\\\\\\\\\ A Man of My Generation \\\\\\\\\//\\\\\\\\\| | | |\\\\| ||\\\\\\\\\\\ ~~~ by Joe Collett ~~~ \\\\\\\\//\\\\\\\\\\| | | |\\\\|__||\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\//\\\\\\\\\\\| | |____________________________________________________________________| Just to be clear, I am talking about the original He-Man from the 80's. As most true He-Man fans will tell you, the others don't count! I don't remember the first time I watched the cartoon or the first figure I owned, but I remember how much that cartoon meant to me. As a young, shy, and nerdy child in the early 1980's, seeing a nice nerdy prince turn into a total badass and kicking the bad guys' tail and saving the world every week was, well... nice. It gave us nerdy, shy, nice people hope that we could rise up and make a difference if we tried. Even if we didn't want to, we had that inside of us just like Prince Adam. Of course, we would get our He-Man toys and hang out with other kids who had the toys and other accessories and we would play. I didn't have as much as others. There was always that one kid who had every playset, character, and accessory. I had He-Man and a few other figures, another kid would have Beast Man, and someone else would have Castle Grey Skull. We would act out episodes, make our own stories, and always play in the mud and dirt. If I am remembering correctly I had He-Man, Battle Cat, Stinkor, and Skeletor. Those guys went to a lot of places with me. On car trips, to friends' homes, and even the grocery store. I remember having a lot of great times playing with those toys, and having fun watching the episodes-- both with and without other kids. Speaking of episodes, as a young kid in the 80's He-Man was like Game of Thrones for kids. We would watch and talk about them the next day at school, on the playground, or at a friend's house. "Did you see what Skeletor tried to do to He-Man?" "Mer-Man got his butt kicked by Man-At- Arms yesterday!" I remember coming home from school and watching the show while laying on my belly in front of the TV with my hands under my chin. I had my toys right there with me. They watched too, of course. The episodes were colorful and exciting. And yes I know that the cartoon was made to just sell the toys, but they also told good stories and taught good lessons. .-------------------------------------------. Later as I grew up, people | .---------------------------------------. | started making parodies of | | | | He-Man. In these parodies, he | | SEND US LETTERS | | was often portrayed as being | | | | gay. I remember asking a gay | | We want your interactions! | | friend if he thought it was | | Respond to any of our articles | | funny too and he said, "Oh | | with your own thoughts and | | hell yeah! He was great for | | we will publish them in | | us little gay guys back in | | our next issue! | | the day. He is an icon." I | | | | honestly had no idea. | | Letters can be submitted at | | | | http://dosanddonts.mywebcommunity.org | | I guess the outcast persona | |_______________________________________| | of Adam transforming into a |___________________________________________| strong hero figure meant a lot to other kids too. He was just as important to other types of outcasts besides the shy and nerdy kids like myself. I think that's one reason why the remakes of the show flopped as badly as they did. The creators of the show didn't realize what the original show meant to so many people who grew up in the early and mid 80's. He-Man could bring people together, both the outcasts and the regular kids. You can disagree with me on this, but I think that's why people of my age (mid 40's) are a little protective of He-Man. That's why any new series has to live up to a higher standard. You can't just get any schmuck and dress him up like He-Man-- he actually needs to be He-Man. By the Power of Grayskull, WE have the power! -Joe ./~ (=@@@@@@@=[}=================-- `\_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Joe Collett: Joe has been working with retro machines since he was a kid and the computers were new. He never lost his love of those early machines. His day job as a desktop support tech allows him to work with the newest machines, but he will always have a soft spot for the old machines and software that made the modern world possible. Joe's Website: comfortablynumb.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________________________________ |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::..........///////////| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ __________________________________ ........../////////| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\| ALEX KIDD: A HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE |::..........///////| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\| by Yousef |::::::......../////| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ::::::::........///| |\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::......../| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sega had an prolonged history in the console industry long before their breakout Mega Drive, also known as the Genesis. One might not think twice about it, but a robust history of games followed Sega throughout their run in the Master System and early lifespan of the Genesis. Classics such as Phantasy Star have been well documented, but one that's often overlooked in the larger gaming conversation is Alex Kidd. This long forgotten former mascot and face of Sega was unceremoniously dethroned by the well-known Blue Blur himself, Sonic the Hedgehog. Because of his sudden absence after the rise of the company's new face, one could make the assumption that Alex Kidd had little significance in the general gaming landscape. Today we take a look at what may have gone wrong with the former megastar of the Sega Genesis. This is Alex Kidd: A Historical Footnote. The focus here is the series's fifth entry, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle. The game is your standard side-scrolling affair, only requiring you to reach the end of the level. Coins obtained from boxes scattered through- out the levels can be used at shops to purchase power-ups. In the shop and with cash in hand, Alex engages in a rock-paper-scissors battle-- the game's bread and butter. Once his opponent is defeated, Alex obtains weapons, exits the shop, and continues the level as usual. The power-ups are simple to use but they are lost any time Alex takes a hit, which leads to the need to re-acquire them often. To top it off, Alex is fragile. His hitbox is larger than it would seem, resulting in many a death that feels unfair. With how easily the power-ups are lost it can feel as if the they are almost useless. Is the little you accomplish in their brief presence even worth the work to obtain them? This issue poses a greater problem than what it would seem at first. Because of the imminent fear of losing your power-ups due to Alex's inher- ent weakness, there is little incentive to seek them out and enhance your gameplay experience. When you do obtain a power-up, it is often gone in the blink of an eye due to poorly planned enemy placement causing Alex to take damage. What's left is barebones combat and basic levels that can be finished in less than a minute. Because this Alex Kidd title lacks depth, its laborious game play is more consequential than in other games of the time. What's left is a shallow platformer where the core gameplay loop revolves around high risk and low reward. We can't be certain these poor gameplay mechanics are what caused the down- fall of our lovable rock-paper-scissors buddy. It is easy to point fingers at poor marketing, a saturated platformer market, troubled development, or plain ol' bad luck. The only thing we can truly rely on are the games them- selves as they continue to be enjoyed over time. In spite of its issues, the Alex Kidd series remains worthy of a look as it maintains a je ne sais quoi-- a charm that's not easy to articulate. It is no surprise the series recently received a new entry with Miracle World DX. Even after all these years the series retains a sizable cult-following. It may take some time for it to grow on you but when it does you will have a relatively lively adventure to keep coming back to whenever the urge strikes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Yousef: Yousef is an avid game completionist, languages nerd, and an all-around cuisine-nut. He is passionate about cooking, traveling, languages, and learning about other cultures. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010 010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101 101 ! ! Gaming and Robotics: ,--. 010 010 ["] ["] ,~<(((((An Obscure Connection(((((((((( |__**| 101 101 /[X]\ [~]\/ Part One |// @| 010 010 ] [ OoO By BlueMSX /o|__| 101 101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010 010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010102 Namco, Atari, and Nintendo are names that I'm sure most of you are famil- iar with. They are the creators of many popular games and entertainment. What you may not know is that all three of these companies also dabbled in the field of robotics. Nintendo is probably the most well-known of the bunch with their Robotic Operating Buddy, or ROB for short. Rob is a simple robot whose job was to play NES games with you, though Gyromite and Stack- Up were the only games that took advantage of the robot. ROB did however have a secondary function-- to help sell the NES as a toy in the United States. After the video game crash, many stores simply weren't interested in selling new video games. Nintendo's previous attempts to market the NES in the States, including an ill-fated deal with Atari, were sadly unsuccessful. By including ROB and the NES Zapper as part of the NES Deluxe Set in the states, Nintendo was able to market the NES as a toy-- with ROB being used frequently in an aggressive advertising campaign that helped make the NES a big hit. As for ROB himself, the way he works is actually similar to the Zapper and, by extension, a camera. Inside ROB's eyes are special photo-conduction cells, similar to the technology used in early light gun systems and modern-day solar panels. These cells look for light and produce a small amount of electricity when light touches them. Like the Zapper, a simple coding system was used. While the Zapper's code was meant to sus out false positives (such as aiming the Zapper at a light bulb instead of the target), ROB's code initiated the different actions that ROB would perform. By having the television perform different light flashes in different patterns, ROB recognizes the patterns as commands to perform actions. A system of motors hooked into simple rods and gears allow ROB to raise or lower his arms, open or close his hands, and turn his arms to the left or right. The electronics that interpret these signals are located in ROB's base, along with his battery compartment. This system effectively makes ROB a wireless accessory for the NES, needing only the light flashes from the NES to operate. ROB was designed by legendary toy designer Gunpei Yokoi, making it the unofficial successor to the electro-mechanical toys that he created for Nintendo before they entered the video game market. To get ROB back in the day you had to purchase the aforementioned NES Deluxe Set which came with the NES console, Zapper, Duck Hunt, Gyromite, ROB himself, and all his accessories. You could also get ROB and Gyromite separately for a bit cheaper. Stack-Up was always sold separately. A Japanese version of ROB and the two compatible games were also released with an alternate color design meant to better match the Japanese Famicom. The two games that took //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ advantage of ROB, the // \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// \\ aforementioned Gyromite //\\ //\\ and Stack-Up, took \\// LIKE WHAT YOU ARE READING? \\// different approaches to // \\ using ROB in their game- //\\ Let us know by submitting //\\ play. In Gyromite diff- \\// feedback to us at \\// erent pieces were at- \\ // tached to ROB's base //\\ http://dosanddonts.mywebcommunity.org //\\ including a gyro-holder \\// \\// which held two gyros, a \\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ //\\ // gyro-spinner, and a \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// \\// switch assembly in which the controller for player two would be inserted. ROB would also be given a set of gloves that went over his hands enabling him to actually hold the gyros. During Gyromite's gameplay, player 1 takes control of Professor Hector and navigates him through a set of levels while simultaneously inputting commands to help ROB clear obstacles that would be otherwise unavoidable. The clearing of said obstacles is done by having ROB press either the A or B button on the second controller using the gyros, with the gyro spinner allowing one of the gyros to free float on the switch. This allows more than one button to be pressed at once. Because ROB is ultimately just pressing buttons on the controller, this game does not actually require ROB and can be played with or without the robot's assistance. Stack-Up, the second game to take advantage of ROB, took a very different approach. The accessories included for ROB to play this game consisted of a set of pedestals and blocks, with the blocks sitting on top of the pedestals. The pedestals themselves attach to ROB's base. There is also a new pair of gloves to help ROB pick up the Blocks. The obvious question is-- if there's no place for the second controller in ROB's attachments, how does he interact with this game? Stack-Up relies on your honesty. During gameplay you input commands to tell ROB to position the blocks on the pedestals in a specified arrangement, one step at a time. Once ROB has arranged all the blocks, pressing start will tell the game that he's com- pleted the task. Because of this it is possible to just keep hitting start over and over to keep advancing in the game-- but the game isn't much fun if you play it like that now is it? It's also worth noting that unlike other games from the initial NES launch titles, Gyromite and Stack-Up were never fully localized. Inside the NES cartridges are the Japanese Famicom circuit boards with a converter attach- ed that allows them to play on the NES. This is why when playing Gyromite and Stack Up, they always boot up as Robot Gyro and Robot Block-- the Japanese names of the games. With his initial function completed, and the retirment of the NES Deluxe Set in favor of cheaper console bundles featuring the newest smash hit Super Mario Bros, ROB would fade into obscurity. ROB did make a few cameo appear- ances in Nintendo games in the years since, with most people in the modern- day knowing him from his prominent appearance in the Super Smash Bros. series starting with Super Smash Bros Brawl on the Wii. Look for Part II next month where we will look at the Atari and Namco robots! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About BlueMSX: BlueMSX, Blue for short, enjoys retro technologies, history, and learning for the sake of learning. She has been interested in retro electronics and media for nearly as long as she can remember. This fascination means that she has a lot of great stories to recount. Blue's philosophy can be summed up by the quote, "History is like a puzzle-- the more pieces you have the more sense it makes." ------------------------------------------------------------------------- _ _ _ _ _ __/ \__ __/ \__ __/ \__ __/ \__ __/ \__ \ /_ _ _ _\ /_ _ _ _\ /_ _ _ _\ /_ _ _ _\ / /_ _\ /_ _\ /_ _\ /_ _\ /_ _\ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / | [] ` ` ` , | | _||_ Chanukah: , , , , | , , , , | | |5784| A Time for Tradition | | | | | | | | | | | \~~/ by Grizzly Adam |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_| | | \/ _ _ ___|___ | __/ \__ __/ \__ __/ \__ __/ \__ __/ \__ \ /_ _ _ _\ /_ _ _ _\ /_ _ _ _\ /_ _ _ _\ / /_ _\ /_ _\ /_ _\ /_ _\ /_ _\ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / ` ` ` ` ` Us Jews know the real meaning of the phrase "holiday season." It means that Chanukah can show up pretty much anywhere between Thanksgiving and New Year Day. Now that's a season! Chanukah, Hanukkah, Hanukka, or however you choose to spell it, is the well-known Jewish Festival of Lights where we celebrate that we had more oil than we thought. To help us remember, we fry potatoes and doughnuts in oil! Most people think of Chanukah as the holiday where we get eight presents over the course of eight nights. That particular tradition is more popular in the United States than in the rest of the world. What many don't realize is that Chanukah is a minor holiday that just happens to fall at the same time of year as the much more well-known holiday of Christmas. The "eight nights of gifts" thing came from Jewish families not wanting their kids to feel left out when the presents start flying this time of year. But don't think we are all getting bicycles and Nintendo Entertainment Systems for our gifts, because we certainly aren't. We are primarily getting socks, dreidels, and coffee cups. You wouldn't believe how many dreidels any given Jewish kid has. I am looking at a small wooden one sitting on my desk right now. I know I have a few floating around in the retro room. I have some for display. My son has one that lights up when it spins-- now that thing looks cool! Let's travel back in time to a traditional 20th century Chanukah and observe the festivities. The Chanukah celebration starts at sundown when your aunts, uncles, cousins and what have you show up and someone starts shredding onions and potatoes for the fried latkes. Zayde (Grandpa) begins telling the story of the miracle of the oil. Just the shammash (the helper candle) and the first menorah candle are lit-- there will be one additional candle each night until all nine are lit. While waiting for the latkes and, hopefully sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts), you play dreidel. Your cousin's dreidel lands on gimel and they take all the gelt (chocolate coins) from the pot. Your family has opted for a traditional Chanukah dish, as outlined by Betty Dean in her 1947 book "The New Jewish Cookbook of Favorite Recipes." On the menu is a mixed green salad, pickles, liver with onions, and a medley of cauliflower, string beans, and beets. Of course, you will also be having some of your latkes with apple sauce for dipping. The featured dish is breaded lamb chops. It is, of course, fried. A tall glass of tomato juice is available to wash it all down. After supper, everyone opens their socks. If you are lucky, they say "Let's Get Lit," "Oil of Oy-vey," or some other Chanukah pun. If you are unlucky, they are just plain tube socks. One (or more) of these nights you will receive a new dreidel. If you are really lucky, you might get one good present, the kind that the Christian kids take for granted. Maybe you will get E.T. for the Atari 2600 (I did). Or maybe Ballblazer for the 7800 when all you have is a 2600 (my brother did). Heck, you might even get that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese watch that your bubbe (grandmother) has been saving box tops for (I got that one, too). Keep in mind, these are the good gifts! When the last candle burns out on the eighth night of Chanukah, your house will smell of stale oil, your fridge will be full of chopped liver, and you will have gained ten pounds and have the squirts from all the oil you con- sumed. But it's still Chanukah until the sun goes down the next night, so let's have another game of dreidel! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Grizzly Adam: Grizz is one of those eccentrics that you read about. The type that people say marches to the beat of their own drum. His hobbies include writing, computers, electronics, telephone systems, pyromania, and lawn care. Grizz's Website: grizz.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | The Latent Image - with Jon Mullin | | | | Olympus Pen EES-2 Review | | Advanced Technology - Batteries Not Required | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Before the digital age, photos were taken on film. They required either a light meter to explain what settings the camera needed to be set at, or a battery to power metering circuitry that automated the process. Then Olympus said, "hold my beer!" Sometimes things come out ahead of their time. This is one of those devices. But instead of being forgotten, it was cherished. Olympus released their EES line of PEN cameras to quite a bit of love. The best part was that they were fully automatic but didn't need a battery, which could run out in the middle of a family reunion. This was a truly high-quality camera at a reasonable price which was fully automatic and easy to use. The whole PEN series were known as half frame cameras, which splits the standard landscape frame of 35mm film (measuring 36x24mm) into a smaller 18x24mm portrait frame. Because of the splitting of frames, you would get twice as many photos on a roll of film. A 36-exposure roll netted you 72 photos! Now Olympus did release the Trip 35 after the PEN using the exact same technology, but these were full frame cameras (a term we still use today) meaning a 36-exposure roll would yield 36 exposures. We're not here to talk about the Trip 35 though, we're here for that classic PEN goodness. How in the world does the Pen EES-2, from the 1960s, have the technology to be fully automatic with no batteries? There couldn't be a microchip that processed data as there wasn't a battery to power it. The answer is quite simple-- a basic light meter like we mentioned above. A light meter is a device that tells a photographer how to set a camera to properly expose the image. The most basic units work by using selenium light cells to collect light. These light cells generate a small charge that moves a lightweight needle across a guide printed on the device. Where the needle points indicates which settings the camera needs to produce a properly exposed image. Taking a closer look at the front of the camera shows a clear bubbled ring aroundthe lens. These bubbles are selenium light sensors, just like in a light meter. These sensors are enough to power an internal light meter with the same type of needle. Using this simple tool, the camera has all it needs to create a mechanical system that can tell it how to expose the image. A lot happens in the process of pressing the shutter button. As the shutter button is pressed, the needle is immediately locked into place. Then an exposure arm with stepped notches moves up to interact with the needle. These stepped notches tell the camera two things: how long to expose the photo and how wide the aperture needs to be. Once the needle is locked by the exposure arm, further pressing the shutter button does a couple more things. First it opens the aperture to its intended position, which limits the amount of light that comes through the lens. The brighter the ambient light, the further the needle extends and the more the aperture narrows. The needle's location on the exposure arm also tells the camera which of its two shutter speeds to fire at. A set of gears are activated based on how far the needle is down the exposure arm. This doesn't speed up the shutter, it actually does the opposite. It slows the speed of the shutter by adding weight to it! By limiting how far the aperture opens and which systems are activated, the camera can figure out how to properly expose the image. Pressing the shutter button all the way down releases the shutter mechanism and resets it back to its home position. Then simply winding the film to the next frame resets the shutter for the next shot. It's not all perfection, sometimes you just need more light! When the camera cannot properly expose the scene, it will simply throw up a red flag, visible in the viewfinder. The camera also has limited ASA (now called ISO) ranges of ASA 25-400. This limited ASA range can lead to those red flags being thrown up when you least expect it. I find that at ASA 400 I can usually shoot indoors in a decently lit room, so that's a big plus. Keep in mind not all EES cameras had the same ASA ranges, so pay attention when picking one up. The first model (the PEN EES) could only handle a maximum ASA of 200. One thing that a light meter can't do is autofocus-- you have to do that part all on your own. Once you get the hang of it though it is actually fairly simple, and there are examples on the focus ring to help you out. So the camera is actually not fully automatic, I lied a bit there. The film advance, film rewind, focus, and shutter release are all mechanically controled by the user. To most people though it's still extremely easy to use compared to most cameras of the time. So why write about this camera? Simple: It's a technological marvel for the time! The camera does the math for exposure all without using any circuitry, using selenium light cells to power a hidden light meter to automate it's most diffucult processes. The Olympus Pen EES-2 makes photography accessible and fun for all. It's a true computer in your pocket, without the fancy microchips. As for me, I use it as my everyday camera. I might be a photographer that can shoot manually on the fly with his fancy digital cameras, but even I just want to take photos and capture the moment without always having to think too hard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Jon Mullin: Jon has been photographing professionally since 2008, but has been surrounded all his life by the small and quirky point and shoot Kodaks that his father collected. Now he photographs pets and people in unique and interesting ways. Jon's Website: jonmullin.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- .--""--. .--""--. /_ _\ /_ _\ // \ / \\ Learn Basic HTML // \ / \\ |\__\ /__/| with Joe |\__\ /__/| \ || / \ || / \ __ / Part Two \ __ / '.__.' '.__.' Hello and welcome back! This is Part Two of Learn Basic HTML with me, Joe. If you didn't read Part One, go back and read that so things make sense. Last month we learned some basic tags and created a simple "Hello World" type of webpage. Now we are going to expand on what we have already learned. For this lesson we will learn some new tags. As promised, we will learn about text color, background color, background images, images on the webpage, and hyperlinks. Let take a look at the tags we will be working with: These are anchor tags and are where hyperlinks live. They use attributes, which can be a little complex, but I will show examples shortly. This is the image tag, complete with the required SRC attri- bute. This is one of the few HTML tags that does not have a closing tag. Put the source path for your image between the quotes of the SRC attribute. Yes, we are going to talk about the body tag again. We can add additional attributes to this tag to change the background and font color. We can even add a background image! Let's have another look at our example from Part One: My First Webpage!

Welcome to my Webpage!



Come back and see me soon!

The first thing we are going to do is modify our body tag to change the background and font color. Hexidecimal color values do work here but we are going to keep it simple and just use color names: So now our code will look like this: My First Webpage!

Welcome to my Webpage!



Come back and see me soon!

Now our text color is green and our background color is blue. Of course these are horrible color choices and may even cause eyestrain for some, but this is just an example. Let's add some more attributes to our body tag. We can change the color of hyperlinks from the typical blue to another color, and the visited link color from purple to another color as well. Some people like to do this to maintain a specific look. In this example I made all the link colors the same as the text color I specified earlier: Now let's look at how to add a background image. Find an image you like and place it in the same directory as your HTML file. It can be any .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, or .png. We will add it to our page as such: I have used 'picture.jpg' in the example above. Make sure that your code matches the name of the file that you choose. Many experienced HTML coders place their image files in a folder called 'pics' located in their webpage directory. Doing so can make file management much easier on a large website and is highly recommended. We would then need to modify our code as such to properly load our image: To add an image to the body of the web page we can use an tag. Let's find another image that you like enough to put on your webpage and place it in the "pics" folder. Will will insert the image immediately after the "Welcome to my Webpage!" text. The tag will look like this: Again, substitute the name of your image file. Your code should look something like this: My First Webpage!

Welcome to my Webpage!



Come back and see me soon!

If you want your picture centered just put a
tag around the tag like this:
Now onto our last tag for this month: the tag. This is the big one! This tag allows us to make hyper-links. You can use these links for files on your own web server or to link to remote files hosted on other websites. You can link to HTML files, images, or any other type of file. Let's make a link to a search engine: Wiby Retro Search Engine In this example we are telling the browser where we want it to go, and providing some descriptive text so website users know what the link is pointed towards. Let's say you want to make an image that acts as a hyperlink. We can do that too! Let's get online and download an image of a "W". This image is going to be a link to Wikipedia. We will use a nested tag that combines an tag and an tag. Instead of text, we put the tag in between the tags. That made the image clickable as a hyper-link. So now our finished code looks like this: My First Webpage!

Welcome to my Webpage!



Wiby Retro Search Engine

Come back and see me soon!

Hopefully this will give you enough tools to build a simple webpage, and maybe it will inspire you to learn more! If you are into self-study I would recommend visiting https://www.w3schools.com/html. I may return to the series in the future, but this is the last installment for now. Thanks for reading and have a good one! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Joe Collett: Joe has been working with retro machines since he was a kid and the computers were new. He never lost his love of those early machines. His day job as a desktop support tech allows him to work with the newest machines, but he will always have a soft spot for the old machines and software that made the modern world possible. Joe's Website: comfortablynumb.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,---. ,---. / /"`.\.--"""--./,'"\ \ \ \ _ _ / / `./ / __ __ \ \,' / /_O)_(_O\ \ | .-' ___ `-. | .--| \_/ |--. ,' \ \ | / / `. / `. `--^--' ,' \ .-"""""-. `--.___.--' .-"""""-. .-----/ \------------------/ \--------. | .---\ /----------------- \ /------. | | | `-`--`--' `--'--'-' | | | | Retro Living in a Modern World | | | | | | | | with Grizzly Adam | | | | | | | | This Installment: Dialing-Up | | | |_________________________________________________| | |_____________________________________________________| Last month I told you a bit about my retro room and the 286 Compaq laptop that I use when I am in the retro room. This month I would like to tell you about how I connect the laptop to my network and to the internet using a dial-up server that I built. The server is Raspberry Pi based and connects me to all the services that I need. Equally as important to the server itself is the ATA that I am using to connect my laptop to it. Let's have a look at both the ATA and the server. An Analogue Telephone Adapter (ATA) is a device that digitally connects traditional telephones. To be absolutely clear, the ATA in this configur- ation does not connect to any traditional telephone lines-- it replaces the need for them. The ATA I chose, a Cisco SPA8000, was designed to connect a mixture of up to 8 traditional phones and an unlimited number of digital IP phones. The device was designed to work with a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) service to allow for calling anywhere in the world, but I have it set up to only make calls within my home. We have phones in the living room, the retro room, the garage, my office, and our youngest daughter's room. Dialing a number between 101 and 108 will make something in the house ring! Ringing line 108 connects my laptop to the Raspberry Pi server. This sounds easy enough, and it is, but it took quite a bit of research and trial and error to ensure reliability. Even the manual for the SPA8000 suggests I shouldn't be trying to use it for modems! The main keys to my success were disabling all the FAX features, disabling echo, and using the G711a codec. G711a uses a narrow audio band which makes it ideal for modem transmission. The Raspberry Pi is equipped with an external USB modem. I was warned that any modem I used must present itself as a serial device when connected to the Pi. After much searching and not finding anything that advertised itself as "serial-presenting" I decided to order the cheapest USB modem on Amazon and an older U.S. Robotics USB modem on eBay. Both devices work identically, either I got lucky or most USB modems are serial presenting. _______________________________ I am trying very hard to keep this / \ \ article at a high-level view and not | | The DOS & Don'ts | get too caught up in the exact de- \_ | Newsletter | tails. Essentially what happens is when | is | my laptop dials into line 108, it rings | Looking for Authors | the USB modem on the Pi. On the second | to write articles on | ring, the Pi answers the modem, completes | retro subjects that they | a handshake, and then begins forwarding | are passionate about. | packets to my laptop. The laptop is then | | online.There are guides available for | Sound like you? | configuring these devices, the best one | Contact Grizz at | is located on the dogemicrosystems.ca | grizzsoft@gmail.com | website. I am also happy to answer any of | _________________________|___ my readers' questions-- just send a | / / letter from the DOS and Don'ts homepage. \_/____________________________/ I have baked a few extra services into my dialup server. For instance, after connecting to the server I can then open a telnet connection to it. I am greeted with the message: Welcome to Southdale Labs - Network Shell. User Grizz logged in successfully! I then have a menu of the following items: 1) Mail, 2)World Wide Web, 3)Time, Date, & Moon, 4)Movie Showtimes, 5)Visual Weather Forecast, 6)Full Weather Report, 7)Get Joke, 8)Geolocation, 9)On-line Encyclopedia, 10)Chat- Bot, 11)Quit to UNIX shell, and 12) Log Off. Mail and World Wide Web are what you would expect, opening the Alpine and Links2 programs respectively. Time, Date, & Moon gives me the day of the week, the current date, the current time in my time zone, the Hebrew date, the sunrise and sunset times, and current details on the current moon phase. On Shabbat and on Jewish holidays it also gives me the local candle lighting times. Showtimes activates a script that I wrote which pulls the showtimes for my local theater off the web, converts them to a text only format, parses, reformats, and then displays them right in the shell. The options for the Visual Weather Forecast and for the Full Weather report work the same way. Get Joke retrieves jokes from a remote server-- I will post my favorite one (so far) at the end of this article. Geolocation tells me information about my connection including my IP address, city, country, longitude, latitude, postal code, and time zone. On-line Encyclopedia opens Gopher- pedia, the Gopher version of Wikipedia. Chat-Bot connects me to Chat-GPT. Quit to UNIX Shell reminds me that I can type "menu" to return before it dumps me into the Linux terminal. I chose to refer to it as a UNIX shell because that is consistent with the time period that I am emulating. Log Off disconnects me from the telnet shell. Showtimes activates a script that I wrote which pulls the showtimes for my local theater off the web, converts them to a text only format, parses, reformats, and then displays them right in the shell. The options for the Visual Weather Forecast and for the Full Weather report work the same way. Get Joke retrieves jokes from a remote server-- I will post my favorite one (so far) at the end of this article. Geolocation tells me information about my connection including my IP address, city, country, longitude, latitude, postal code, and time zone. On-line Encyclopedia opens Gopherpedia, the Gopher version of Wikipedia. Chat-Bot connects me to Chat-GPT. Quit to UNIX Shell reminds me that I can type "menu" to return before it dumps me into the Linux terminal. I chose to refer to it as a UNIX shell because that is consistent with the time period that I am emulating. Log Off disconnects me from the telnet shell. I can do other things with my dialup connection as well. I frequent BBSs, chat on discord and Facebook Messenger via my IRC client, access FTP servers, and maintain my website from it. In fact, if you visit my website (listed in my bio at the end of this article) you can read about the internet software that I use and about my favorite BBSs. I leave you now with the joke that I promised earlier. Until next month! Q: What do you call an alligator in a vest? A: An in-vest-igator! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Grizzly Adam: Grizz is one of those eccentrics that you read about. The type that people say marches to the beat of their own drum. His hobbies include writing, computers, electronics, telephone systems, pyromania, and lawn care. Grizz's Website: grizz.atwebpages.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ,------------------. ( Our Readers' ) > Retro < ( Memories ) `-----------(_)----' 0 o POJR from YouTube writes: As someone who's 31, a common question I get is how I got into retro gaming. There's people my age who were first introduced to the Nintendo 64, so how did I get into the Atari 2600, NES and Genesis? The answers are hand-me downs, Plug N Plays and pirates. As kids, we were usually not given the latest and greatest. Why buy the SNES when the NES works perfect- ly fine? I received a lot of hand-me-downs from my Mom and brother, so when people were playing the N64, I was playing the SNES. I'm thankful for this, because generally newer games hold your hand with tutorial modes and have long padded out stories. Retro games forced you to learn on your own, and you didn't have to think much, just pick up and play. Another big part of my love for retro games came from Plug N Plays, espec- ially the ones from Jakks Pacific (Shootouts to Marxfan2002 who's a big Jakks Pacific fan). My family was very money-oriented, so cheap Plug N Plays were an attractive option. Only $20 for 5-10 in a single unit, how could we go wrong? My first Plug N Play was the Atari 10-in-1, which featured all 2600 titles. This was my first introduction to the Atari 2600, and I played the collection a lot. Without this particular Plug N Play, I may not ever have been introduced to Atari. And finally, let's talk about bootlegs. I'm sure we've all seen those knock off consoles at shopping malls that supposedly have 10,000+ games, and are usually just cheaply made controllers that have stolen games. Most of these are NES titles that were duplicated multiple times to reach the 10,000 game count. These were huge because they featured Japanese exclus- ives like Circus Charlie, TwinBee, Antarctic Adventures and others. This showed me that there was a lot more to retro gaming than what we got in the US, and it made me interested in looking for what else was out there. It's weird to think that bootlegs would have such a positive impact on me, but it did, and I'm sure others were positively impacted by it too because it gave exposure to franchises that didn't exist in the US. So that's essentially how it happened, coming from a money oriented family that didn't care about having the latest and greatest technology. The con- venience of Plug N Plays and Bootlegs, and my preference for simplicity also helped. But no matter how it happened, I'm glad it happened. .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. Yousef from Kuwait writes: Will never forget every time I sat down in a game session of Megaman 1 through 6 on the NES late at night in dark but lit room, getting absorbed in the atmosphere and being enchanted by the soundtracks of each. Unforgettable experiences. .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. Navybluewolf2 from Bancroft, Iowa writes: I remember when the Super Nintendo was released; I had never played a Mario game before. It was the first console my parents bought for our family. My brother and I would collect empty soda cans on Saturday mornings and exchange them for a few dollars to buy day-old donuts and a 20 oz soda. We'd finish watching Saturday morning cartoons on ABC, switch the TV over to the SNES, and play Super Mario World for hours. We often argued over who got to be player one or how to beat a level. Around this time my mom and her boss became friends and we met his daughters. The oldest, who was closest to my age, quickly became my first crush. Although I never mustered the courage to tell her, we all enjoyed playing that Mario game. We often took turns, rotating between the four of us, playing a level and then passing the controllers. They moved away before we got to middle school, and we lost touch for several years. I can't play or think of Super Mario World without thinking of her and all the fun we had. .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. Our own Grizzly Adam from Algona, Iowa writes: When I was about 8, I was walking with my family through our backyard when Mom's leg sunk into the ground. She had found a large void with a narrow opening. I don't know if this hole was the result of an old structure, if it was a narrow cave, or even if it was where a massive tree had stood many years before. We dumped all manner of things into the seemingly bottomless hole. Food scraps, cat litter and even the ashes from the wood stove all went inside. About 5 years later the bottomless pit was finally filled. .-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-. To submit your own memory, visit our homepage (dosanddonts.mywebcommunity. org) and look for the link! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- (((_.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._.-=-._))) ))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(( (( > < )) )) EDITOR: Grizzly Adam (( (( > ASSISTANT EDITOR: Jon Mullin < )) )) CONSULTING EDITOR: Plendlful (( (( > PUBLISHER: Grizzly Adam < )) )) ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Joe Collett (( (( > < )) )) WRITERS (( (( > --------- < )) )) Grizzly Adam (( (( > Joe Collett < )) )) BlueMSX (( (( > Jon Mullin < )) )) Yousef (( (( > < )) )) http://dosanddonts.mywebcommunity.org (( (( > < )) ))...............................................................(( (( > SHARE ME! PUT ME ON YOUR SERVER, SEND ME TO YOUR FRIENDS! < )) ))...............................................................(( (((`-._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.--._.-'`-._.-)))